


Sherlock's Christmas Carol

by bwblack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Gen, Ghosts, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwblack/pseuds/bwblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall, Moriarty's ghost visits Sherlock.   He tries to use Christmas past, present, and future to illustrate his victory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Moriarty's Ghost

Stave One  
Moriarty's Ghost

 

Moriarty was dead to begin with.

Sherlock knew he was dead? Of course he did. 

Sherlock had stood quietly by as Moriarty put a bullet through his brain.  
He had watched as the critical volume of blood flowed from Moriarty's wound pooling about his lifeless body

When Sherlock was quite certain nothing could be done to revive his nemesis, he stepped off the roof faking his own death. 

After making certain that Moriarty would never return, Sherlock took leave of London to protect those around him from Moriarty's minions. 

He did not want to leave. He tried to think of other solutions. When all was said and done, however, he had to do what it took to keep Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and John safe.

If that was the only way to assure John's safety, he was prepared to never return to his home.

In the following months he travelled the world alone, dealing with individual members of Moriarty's network. He thought he would simply round up all of the bad guys and be home in time for tea... well, tea 2012. But, with each cell he eradicated another two popped up. Sherlock began to fear he would never return home.

He took little notice of the passing of time. It took considerable effort. He tried not to dwell on the well being of those he left behind. It hurt too much.

Sherlock became increasingly discouraged. He wasn't making progress. He was making things worse. He worked all day and all night. He slept little. He ate less. 

He buried himself in clues and cases and for what? 

He was no nearer home than he had been the first day he left. 

It was a sad, solitary existence. 

As winter approached he found himself drawn to London on the heels of a man said to be the right hand of the right hand of the man who assumed Moriarty's post. 

It was dangerous to be in this city, so near the life he still craved. It was all he could do not to bound up the steps of the Baker Street and resume the life he'd left as if nothing had ever happened, but he dared not. 

He had to stay away from Whitehall, from Scotland Yard, and from 221B. He could not be be discovered. It would put them all in terrible danger. 

He had to stay hidden in the shadows of the city he loved. 

Nobody was more prepared for it than he. He'd spent years exploring the darker, seedier sections of the city, while cultivating his network of homeless helpers and indulging his refuge to drugs. 

Sherlock sunk into the darkest, dirtiest, most drug riddled sections of the city and felt right at home. He spoke to nobody; nobody spoke to him. He took shelter in a dingy, moldy abandoned flat. Once settled he began to stalk his prey.

Being so close to home brought back visions of his past. Every man with an umbrella might be his brother, every far off siren might foretell the coming of former business associates, and every laugh, every cry, every sound might come from someone he loved. 

He couldn't take it anymore. He had to clear his head. He had to get some sleep. He had to stop the visions and voices in his head. On his way back to his rooms he gave a slight nod to a busker on the street as he slid more than the usual amount into his case. He received a jolly, "Thank you sir, Happy Christmas." At the next street corner he was jostled by a man hurrying past. 

Sherlock smiled. As his hand slipped into his pocket he felt the familiar packet. 

Tonight. Oblivion. 

He could have sworn, for a moment, that the beggar on the corner was wearing a Westwood suit.

He shook his head and carried on. He was seeing things. His mind was playing tricks. 

He pushed past a little girl sitting outside his door. 

"Sir," she called out to him. 

Sherlock kept walking. 

"Sir?" she said again. "Sir, you dropped something." 

He looked down. He saw nothing. 

The girl pointed to a small red toy by her feet. 

Was that a heart? 

"That...that's... that's not mine." Sherlock stammered.

Suddenly, the little girl snapped her fingers and and the heart burst into flames.

As Sherlock stared, the girl's angelic face contorted until it looked exactly like Jim Moriarty. 

"I burned the heart right out of you," mocked Moriarty. "I told you I would. I did. I burned it right out of you."

Sherlock pushed through the door and charged to his flat. He locked the door behind him. He was hallucinating. He had to be. He'd never experienced anything like that, not while straight... but...

He took a deep breath, it was over. It was a hallucination, or whatever it was, it was over. 

He took the packet of drugs from his pocket and tossed it on the room's one table. He heard a strange pounding noise and went to investigate it. When he came back the packet was gone. 

Sherlock dropped to his knees ,looked under the table, under the chair, and reached into his pocket where it had been. 

"Missing something are we?" Sherlock instantly recognized the high pitched voice. 

"No." he muttered, disbelieving.

"Yes." Moriarty held out the packet of drugs. 

"No." Sherlock repeated as he lunged for the packet. 

"You keep saying that." Moriarty ducked behind Sherlock. 

Sherlock spun to face him. "Who are you? What are you?"

"You mean who was I? What was I?"

"You were Jim Moriarty and you are dead." 

"Quite." Moriarty agreed as he sat down on the table. 

"You are dead. You aren't here." 

"I am dead and I am here," Moriarty argued. 

"Impossible." Sherlock lunged again for his drugs. 

"Improbable, at best..." Moriarty flew three feet in the air causing Sherlock to crash into the table. It crumpled under his weight.

"Have a seat before you hurt yourself.... further." 

Sherlock righted himself and took a seat in the chair. 

Moriarty laughed. "You are having trouble believing in me." 

"No trouble, really. I don't believe in ghosts. It is as simple as that." 

"And yet you can see me with your very own eyes."

"Eyes can play tricks," Sherlock argued. 

"Even those of the once great Sherlock Holmes?" Moriarty shook his head. "Those eyes were your stock and trade. If you can't trust your senses...." 

"Senses can easily be fooled." 

"Can they now?"

"Easily. There is more of morphine than of Moriarty in you, whatever you are." Sherlock smirked. John would have liked that joke. 

Or no, John would not have liked Sherlock sitting alone in a filthy hovel chatting with fake phantoms. 

"Oh Sherlock," Moriarty tutted. "You see but you do not observe." 

Sherlock scowled even more convinced that this apparition was a figment of his imagination, a flight of fancy, a desperate cry for help from his overworked, underfed psyche. 

"Observe this," Moriarty said before walking straight through the wall into the alley outside.

"Good riddance" Sherlock called after him, closing his eyes ready to sleep off whatever contact high he was experiencing. He told himself he would indulge in a large breakfast tomorrow... if he remembered. 

Before Sherlock could drift off, Moriarty returned. "You really should spring for nicer accommodations. You have vermin right outside these rather flimsy walls, probably in them, too." 

Sherlock sighed, "You should feel right at home then, amongst your own kind." 

"Droll." Moriarty said without expression.

"Would you just go?"

"Why would I? This is so much fun!"

"I shall just ignore you," Sherlock closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. 

Moriarty laughed, "Aren't you precious." He rattled the window and slammed the door.

Sherlock stayed motionless.

Moriarty smashed the coffee pot against the wall near Sherlock's head. It left a hole in the wall. Shattered glass flew everywhere, "I hope you weren't counting on collecting your security deposit." 

Sherlock pulled his coat over his head. 

"Think your magic coat will save you?" Moriarty laughed. He pulled the microwave from the wall and held it directly over Sherlock's head. "It can't protect you from this." 

"Do it." Sherlock challenged from beneath his coat. "You'll have nobody to haunt. Win win." 

Moriarty threw the microwave against the wall greatly increasing the size of the hole. 

"Oh no, you've deprived me of super fast popcorn. Whatever will I do?" Sherlock called in mocking tones. 

Moriarty fumed for only a second before flying high into the air right above Sherlock's body and diving down until he too was enveloped in Sherlock's warm coat. 

Sherlock shuddered, sputtered, and sprang to his feet. 

Moriarty chuckled, "I win." 

"What do you want with me?"

Moriarty gleamed brilliantly. "That is what I want." 

"What?"

"I want to win." 

"You'll never win. I'm alive. You're dead. I win. Gave over. Goodbye. I'd show you the door, but you don't need it. Feel free to show yourself out of any wall... or the floor. That would get you nearer your final destination, I should think." 

Moriarty's laugh began the moment Sherlock began speaking continued raising in volume until the whole building shook. 

Large jagged cracks spread out from the large hole in the wall. The cracks spread rapidly in every direction all the way to the ceiling. 

Sherlock's heart pounded in his chest as the floor began buckling beneath him. Radios, televisions, and alarm clocks in the units above him came on and their volume increased with every second. 

Sherlock reached out for the chair, needing something, anything to ground him to reality as the noise overcame his senses and the world began to spin too fast, much, much too fast. 

The pile of wood that had once been the table flew up into the air and and landed directly on Sherlock's head. 

"I burned the heart right out of you" Sherlock heard Moriarty sing out as he lost consciousness.


	2. A tale of two ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moriarty takes John to revisit the last Christmas he spent with John. Mummy's ghost interferes.

Stave Two  
A tale of two pasts

When Sherlock first awoke he wasn't certain of his surroundings. It was early evening when he'd purchased the drugs. Clearly he had taken them, he couldn't have had those visions without them. How many days had passed? One? Two? Had he managed to get through the entirety of Christmas unconscious? 

He lifted his head, forced open his eyes, and found himself in a dank, dark, dingy flat. At first he was comforted. The madness had ended. He was alone. He was unaffected by drugs. He was right where he should be. 

Except he wasn't. 

There was no chair. There was no broken table. There was no hole in the wall. The room was empty. 

Sherlock tried to get his bearings. It was dark, much too dark. The only light came in through a window at the top of the room. 

He must be in a basement. How had that happened? It didn't make any sense. As he tried to work it all out he paced great circles around the small room. As he spun he found himself focusing on the center of the room where a great fog was emanating from the floor. 

Sherlock stopped.

The room spun around him. With each revolution the fog pulled in tighter and tighter to the center of the room until it took on a human form.

Sherlock groaned as he again came face to face with Jim Moriarty. "Where are we? And don't say a basement flat, I've worked that out already."

Jim simply smiled.

Sherlock walked to the door. "I can just take a look for myself. Goodbye." 

Moriarty popped up right in front of him. "You didn't really think you could be rid of me that easily, did you?"

"Hope springs eternal," Sherlock reached through Moriarty, opened the door, realized where he was, and sprinted up the stairs.

"John," he called out as soon as soon as he entered his former flat. "John, John." 

Christmas music came from the speakers, something cheery, John's selection no doubt. Yorrick sat in his usual place upon the mantle festively adorned in a small Santa's cap. 

"Christmas, it's Christmas." Sherlock yelled. 

John came out from the kitchen wearing a ridiculous Christmas sweater carrying a steaming cup of tea. He sat down and began packing his laptop into a box. 

"What are you doing, John?" 

John checked all of the cords, disks and manuals before closing the box.

"John?" Sherlock waved his hand in front of his friend's face. "Earth to John...." 

"He can't hear you," Moriarty sang out gleefully. "Maybe you should try 'spirit world to John'... But... spoiler alert... he won't be able to hear that either." 

"What's going on here?" Sherlock asked, desperately trying to get John's attention. 

John began carefully wrapping the box.

"Wait," Sherlock announced, finally having put the pieces together. "That's not John's computer. That's the one we got Mrs. Hudson last Christmas...This is last Christmas?" 

"Ding, ding, ding" Jim sounded, "got it one... one hour... Without me to challenge you, you are way less clever. Pity." 

Sherlock pinched himself. 

"Not dreaming." Jim sighed. "Really. Honestly. Did you think it would be a dream? Dreams are so mundane, so Tuesday! This is not a dream. This is Christmas past." 

Sherlock rolled his eyes , "We've established that. The question is what are we doing here?" 

"We're here for your concession speech." 

"And what am I conceding?" Sherlock blew hot breath on a spoon. 

"And now you're thinking that maybe you've died. " Moriarty shook his head. "Not that either." 

"No?" 

"No, I have brought you back to see your last Christmas. Back when you were surrounded by friends and family, back when you had a heart. Before I won." 

"I remember what happens at this party. You're going to be so disappointed." 

"I seriously doubt that." 

Sherlock strode to the door anticipating Mrs. Hudson's arrival. "Hello dears," he mouthed along with her, "I hope I'm not too early, thought I'd have a bit of a poke 'round before the other guests arrive. We don't want a repeat of what happened last time you had company. Have you made certain there are no fingers in the refrigerator? It is so unsanitary."

 

Sherlock found a quiet corner and settled in to enjoy the show. He couldn't say for sure if he lost track of time or if the party had suddenly advanced. In the blink of an eye the room was full of food, drink, and friends. 

Some of it felt like it was yesterday. He could predict word for word the things that came out of his mouth, he could mimic the reaction of his guests. Other things felt like they were from a lifetime ago, more. 

Sherlock tried to remember the name of the girl John was with. She wasn't the doctor, no... the teacher? 

It hadn't mattered then. It didn't matter now. Should it have? He had no time to ponder this as Molly walked into the room. He cringed knowing what would happen.

Moriarty came near, "Is Lestrade leering at her? Disturbing." 

Sherlock cringed and tried to move away from the carnage that was to come as his memory began to humiliate and berate Molly in a stupid quest to suss out her secret love. 

Moriarty moved behind Sherlock and pushed him from behind until he was right back in the middle of the scene. It was just in time to hear himself ruin Lestrade's wife's reputation, and to tell John of Harry's latest relapse. 

Enraged, Sherlock faced Moriarty. "You didn't do it." He spat. 

"Didn't do what? The harpy in the too tight dress?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively in Moly's direction. "I would have... if she'd looked like that.... always wore shapeless wooly jumpers when we went out... pity, really. We could have had such fun."

Sherlock's anger turned to bitter mirth as he began to chuckle. "You think you burnt the heart out of me... but the truth is, the cold hard fact is, I never had a heart to begin with."

A gust of wind descended through the chimney and entered the room with a low moan.

"You see, Jim," Sherlock shook off the painful words, "They are better off without me." 

The wind moaned louder. Sherlock turned to face the fireplace as it started to groan. "What... I don't... what is that?'

Moriarty yawned, "It is an old building. They settle." 

"No." Sherlock moved closer to the fireplace. "No, no, no, no, no no. I am all too familiar with the settling if this building. Sometimes it creaks but when it does, it is heard by all inhabitants not just those who are apparitions or ghastly hallucinations." 

"Ghostly hallucinations, more like." Moriarty argued. "Only thing is? I'm not a hallucination." 

Sherlock faced the party guests. "They aren't hearing this." 

Sherlock turned back to fireplace and watched in horror as the bricks began to shift. "It's..... growing." He gulped. 

"It is a trick of the light." Moriarty said quickly. "Happens all the time.... well, we've seen enough here. Best be going." 

Sherlock stared in fascinated horror as the hearth expanded across the floor. "No, I don't think so." 

"You don't think so?" Moriarty grabbed onto Sherlock's collar and tugged him towards the door. "I make the rules here." 

The deep moan morphed into a high pitched cackle as ash from the fireplace was disturbed by a great gust of wind and began to dance about the room like grimey, gray snow. 

Mrs. Hudson would be furious if it got on the floors. 

But the ashes never seemed to come down. Sherlock shook his head in wonder. None of the bizarre things he had encountered that day had betrayed gravity.

It was too much. 

He stood, mouth agape, in stunned silence as the ashes slowly came together in the form of a familiar woman in a grey suit.

A very familiar woman indeed. 

"Mummy?" 

Moriarty laughed. "Oh, this is getting good."

"Right, well, time to go..." Sherlock edged away from the sooty snooty form that so resembled his mother.

"Not so fast, young man." 

Sherlock looked around half expecting to see a child sized version of himself, and shuddered when he realized her grey eyes were trained on his own. "What... what are you doing here?" 

"Yes, this is my haunting." Moriarty complained. 

"Charming, I'm sure." She said dismissively. "What was it you were saying, Sherlock?"

Sherlock stared. 

Moriarty laughed. "Tongue tied? I burned the heart right out of you and she the power of speech. I think I am going to like your mother.' 

Sherlock shook his head, "Better off without me, all of them." 

"Better off without you? Better off without you? Have you gone daft?" She glided right up to him and made a show of looking in his ear as if she might see see air on the other side.

"Quite." Sherlock said solemnly trying not to betray his pain.

"And how did you come to that wildly wrong conclusion? Have you been drinking?" 

Moriarty laughed, "Drinking is the least of it..." He made a show of injecting a solution into his arm and pointed to Sherlock, "The very least." 

Mrs. Holmes sighed heavily, "I really thought you would have grown out of that... honestly, Sherlock...." 

"Honestly? You want honesty?" Sherlock grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her towards the sofa where he remembered ending John's relationship "I hurt everybody around me. I hurt you!"

Mrs. Holmes waved a hand dismissively. "Nobody gets through life without causing a little collateral damage. You bump into things as you make your way in the world. The goal is to do more good than harm." 

"More good? Look at them? I've ruined lives." 

"Take it from somebody with no life left, lives are less fragile than you think. It isn't just one moment, Sherlock, it isn't."

"All of my moments end in destruction." 

"Mine too." Moriarty interjected gleefully. "The better ones end in death." 

"And all of your moments, Sherlock," His mother said as she reached up and took him by the ear, "Begin with death." 

Sherlock's head bent as he tried to fight against the pain and humiliation of being led about by his ear. 

Moriarty chortled loudly as Sherlock's mother led him straight into the hearth and snapped her finger causing the floor to fall away beneath them. 

Sherlock twisted and tumbled in the air for what seemed like days but must have been seconds, or shorter for when he finally found himself sprawled downstairs in Mrs. Hudson's flat. 

"Personally, I would have taken the stairs." Moriarty grumbled. "Much more sanitary." He made a show of brushing a bit of soot from the lapel of his suit despite the whole thing being covered in ash. "Much, much much." He gave up all pretense and shook like a dog trying to dry off.

Sherlock gave a short spasm of coughs as he righted himself. "Mrs. Hudson will be livid!"

"She's a housekeeper." His mother waved away his concerns. 

"Really, she's not." Sherlock sighed. "She'll be furious and on Christmas. People care more about dirt at Christmas. John made me dust the...." He stopped too pained by the memory of previous domesticity. 

"You never worried about tracking all manner things through my house at Christmas..." His mother groused.

Sherlock sniffed the air... "Mince pies and sausage rolls and..." He coughed. "Are they burning? They couldn't be. Mrs. Hudson's holiday treats are a bit of local legend. It must be excess ash in my nostrils." Sherlock tried to sneeze.

"No." Moriarty said. "It's getting worse..." 

"Smoke?" Sherlock rushed into Mrs. Hudson's tiny kitchen trying to waft the smoke away from the alarms. "I don't understand..."

"When you forget things in the oven they burn... All the brains in the world and none of the education." Moriarty turned to Mrs. Holmes. "Where did you send him for school?"

"I ate this dinner. It was delicious. Well, John said it was delicious when he ate it. There wasn't a burned bit. Mrs. Hudson would have apologized for a week. I'm sure I would have noticed, eventually." 

Mrs. Holmes sighed heavily and pointed at the calendar. "You most certainly did not eat this meal!" 

"i've been telling him! He sees but he doesn't observe quite a shame, really." Moriarty chided like a disappointed parent. 

"Christmas was on Monday. No it wasn't it was on Sunday. I distinctly remember beause...." He looks back at the wall calendar. "Monday? That's not right." Sherlock looked puzzled for a second and then realization dawned, "Christmas is on a Monday because this is five years ago." 

"About time, dear." His mother sighed.

"I didn't know Mrs. Hudson five Christmases ago. We met right after the new year...." Sherlock began to explain. He was drowned out by Moriarty's shrieking.

"Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!"

And that was drowned out by the loud, piercing sound of the smoke detector. 

Mrs. Hudson rushed in, the neighbor Mrs. Turner fast on her heals. "Oh no. That will be dinner. I forgot all about the oven... I don't know where my mind has been since I got that letter in the post. Thinks this new evidence might get him a pardon? What if it does? I've gotten quite used to living on my own, and without people from the neighborhood "disappearing"...

Mrs. Turner helped Mrs. Hudson open up the windows and doors to clear out the smoke. "It will all work out in the end..."

"I'll have to leave the country. Change my name. Maybe I can change my face? I could look like Greta Garbo. I will be living like her, might as well look the part." 

"Lets see what that man with the website has to say before you sell the house. Maybe he can help." 

"He did help." Mrs. Holmes reminded her son. "You kept that odious man from a last minute pardon. You saved her life, or at least her life as she knows it." 

"That odious man was guilty." Moriarty sighed. "He wouldn't have been pardoned." 

"And there are no innocent men walking the street?" Mrs. Holmes laughed. "I believe you've never been convicted." 

Moriarty broke into a big smile. "I am terribly charming." 

"Ernie Hudson wasn't. Jim's right." Sherlock made a face as if it made him ill to utter those words.

Jim gleefully cupped his hand to his ear, "What was that? I'm not sure I caught it all." 

"Shut up." Sherlock sighed. "Mrs. Hudson would have been just fine. I happened to be the one who helped her. She didn't need my help."

"Maybe she didn't but...." Mrs. Holmes snapped her fingers and the room filled completely with smoke.

Sherlock choked. 

"Cheat, cheat, cheat, cheat," Moriarty muttered as the smoked swirled around them. 

"I never cheat." Mrs. Holmes said as the spinning smoke cleared. 

"Christmas past is to refer to his past. You can't show him other peoples." Moriarty grumbled.

Mrs. Holmes shrugged and pulled a large cardboard tube from her ash coloured purse, stuck it out in front of her and set the smoke swirling rapidly in the opposite direction. 

A thin wisp of smoke wound it's way round her stick and pulled the rest of it with it until the all the smoke clung together round the stick like a giant silvery candy floss. When she had all of it collected, she opened the tiny window and flung it out into the air.

"CHEAT!" Moriarty said as he looked around the sparse, lifeless bedsit. 

"I didn't go through all the trouble of dying so I could be a slave to the rules," Mrs. Holmes said as she checked her watch.

Sherlock looked around. He'd never been here before but he knew the few precious possessions inside. "John?" he whispered as he fingered the fine knit of the sweater hanging off the back of the chair.

"Is it even Christmas?" Moriarty shouted.

Sherlock tuned them all out. He compared the flat to the one he imagined. "Before he came to Baker..."

The door clicked open and Sherlock watched John take laboured, limping steps into the room. He looked older and more pained than Sherlock ever remembered him... but that couldn't be right. This was before they had met. 

John threw his wallet and keys onto the small desk, sat down on the bed and rolled his shoulders. He bit his lip and rubbed the arm that must still ache from where the bullet had been recently removed. 

Sherlock fought the urge to reach out for John, knowing he couldn't touch him. "He's in pain. He should take something!" 

"His shoulder isn't the problem, Sherlock. You know that." His mother said softly as she reached up and squeezed his shoulder. 

"It isn't helping." Sherlock bit back, petulantly. 

John let out a heavy, tired sigh, reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a gun. 

"No, don't..." Sherlock gasped.

"You know he doesn't." Moriarty sighed. "He meets you. You go on little adventures together until... Until I burn the heart right out of you..." 

Sherlock watched as John traced the lines of the gun as if it was his salvation. 

"Don't," he whispered. 

Moriarty threw up his hands in disgust. 

John tested his hand on the grip of the gun and pointed it towards his face.

"No!" Sherlock screamed, "Don't!" 

The phone rang. 

John dropped the gun. 

Sherlock breathed a deep sigh of relief. 

The machine clicked on. "John, this is your sister, pick up. I'm downstairs. On my way up. I've come to take you out for a drink. I won't take no for an answer." 

John sighed, shook his head, grabbed his sweater and left. 

"You saved him." Sherlock's mother said.

"Really?" Moriarty charged. "Because from where I'm sitting his sister did that....

Mrs. Holmes looked from Moriarty to her son. "Your brother?"

"I don't have a brother" Jim offered. "I did, but he was so average. I couldn't have that." 

Mrs. Holmes glared. "Mycroft." 

"Mycroft is not average," Jim allowed.

"At your Christmas party... where was your brother?" 

"He didn't come." 

"He wasn't invited, you mean?" 

"Well, no. Not as such. But he wouldn't have come anyway. He doesn't go in for Christmas." Sherlock shrugged. "He thinks we should not be the type of soppy sentimentalists who feels compelled to call just for the date's sake." 

Mrs. Holmes eyes went wide. "He doesn't does he?" 

"Not really, no." Sherlock shrugged. 

"Well, we'll just see about that." Mrs. Holmes snapped her fingers and was gone.

Sherlock smiled, "I do not envy Mycroft at this moment."

"I never envy Mycroft...such expensive suits, such poor tailoring." 

Sherlock nearly laughed until he caught sight of the gun on the ground and dropped to his knees. 

"She thinks you saved him, but we know the truth..." Moriarty cackled. "Don't we?" 

Sherlock shook his head violently. 

"You know what I know." 

Sherlock pulled his collar up around his ears as if it could drown out the next words.

"You saved him just to destroy him all over again. Isn't it delicious? Moriarty gave a gleeful laugh. "So very delicious. Do you want to see? I know I do." 

"No." Sherlock said firmly. 

Moriarty laughed harder and the gun began to slide towards HIM. 

"No, no, no, no, no..." Sherlock stood as the gun inched ever nearer. 

"Yes." Jim reached down for it.

Sherlock dove to try to get it, knowing it was useless, knowing he couldn't shoot a specter. 

Jim laughed as the room expanded and Sherlock landed further from the gun then he started. 

"No!" Sherlock yelled as Jim fired into the wall.


	3. Bleak House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas present, yes. Christmas presents? No.

Stave Three  
Bleak House

Sherlock closed his eyes and waited for the pain. Welcomed it. It didn't come. 

The gun sounded again, and again, and again. 

Still he felt no pain. 

Slowly, carefully, Sherlock opened first one eye and then the other. The wall in front of him had a bullet marking each of the four corners of a traditional door. 

He looked up at Jim who walked to the wall, jammed the muzzle of the gun into the drywall until it hung halfway in the wall and halfway out.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock asked, completely unable to think of anything possible or impossible and finding himself, for the first time in his life with a complete mental blank. 

He did not like it. He did not like it at all.

Moriarty blew on each bullet hole, then made a show of rolling up each of his sleeves one after another, showing he had nothing hidden inside. 

"You are a ghost! You don't need magic!" Sherlock growled. 

Moriarty smirked, grabbed the handle of the gun in one hand and twisted." 

Sherlock braced himself for another shot that never came as the roughed out door swung open effortlessly. 

Moriarty held out a hand indicating Sherlock should go first.

Sherlock had no idea what to expect. He didn't want to be Jim's guinea pig but as he stood on the threshold trying to peer into the abyss, Moriarty gave him a swift kick and he tumbled through the door. 

Sherlock opened his eyes wide, not certain what to expect in this new room. He found himself in a quiet, lonely, familiar looking room. "We're at 221B?" He asked both certain and not.

It had been that kind of day. Everything seemed so much like he had left it, and yet everything was different. The room was dark, quiet, and dusty. The layout was the same, the position of the furniture. But every bit of it was covered in dusty white cloths. 

"I... I..." Sherlock stared at the room he was in, trying to make sense of it. "Is this before I moved in?" He moved through room taking a mental inventory and comparing it to the one he had from the day that he left. "No, it can't be. These are my things." 

"Yes. But you aren't using them. No time for creature comforts when you are hunting my men." 

"John, though, John should be using them." Sherlock tried to remember what if any of the covered things had belonged to John.

"He isn't though. He isn't using this flat and he isn't using these things. He's gone." Moriarty retorted. "You gave up all of this to rid the world of my accomplices. But you can't. They keep multiplying. You have nothing." 

"Mrs Hudson!" Sherlock yelled. 

"She can't hear you." 

"Mrs. Hudson isn't gone." Sherlock bounded towards the door. 

"Are you quite certain about that?" Moriarty asked, his voice was too full of glee and expectation. Sherlock pulled up short for just a second. But if Mrs. Hudson was gone, his things would be too. Surely, the new landlady would not be as tolerant of his abandoned things." He opened the door and started rapidly descending the stairs. But suddenly the staircase fell away and Sherlock dropped directly, painfully into the first story hall. 

Moriarty giggled, "I told you the stairs were quicker. Less of a mess too." He looked back down at his suit checking it for any residual ash. 

"Right," Sherlock grumbled from where he lay inelegantly sprawled across the floor. He stood up and went to Mrs. Hudson's door

Moriarty grabbed Sherlock by the collar, threw him right through the closed door.. 

Sherlock smashed into the back wall while Moriarty floated in after. 

Moriarty chuckled. "That will never get old." 

Sherlock glared. "That is a matter of opinion." 

"Yes," Moriarty agreed. "But mine is the only opinion I listen to!" 

Sherlock looked around the room taking in every change from when he lived upstairs, and when they had visited earlier in the night. "It's all here. Everything is all the same." 

"Is it?" Moriarty wrinkled his nose and began to sniff. "Are you quite certain of that? 

Not wanting to give Moriarty the satisfaction, Sherlock tried to be particularly discreet in his sniffing of the air, until he realized there was nothing to smell. Well, of course there was something to smell. There was always something but not the pleasing aromas of Mrs. Hudson's annual Christmas feast. "She's not cooking." 

Moriarty examined his fingernails, "It took you long enough." 

Sherlock rushed into the kitchen to investigate. "She always cooks at Christmas. She's an institution!" 

"You might have mentioned." Moriarty said, looking bored.   
Sherlock began to study the oven. "Maybe it is broken. It is ancient." 

"Unlikely." Jim offered. 

"Maybe she's gone to visit her sister." 

"Maybe..." Jim sounded doubtful. 

"No, it isn't very likely. She never travels over Christmas. She's not ill. There are no medicines lying about, no antiseptic odour." 

"You're certain?." Jim smiled. 

"She's not! Is she?" Sherlock demanded picking up Moriarty by the lapels.

"I don't know." He blew a puff of air into sherlock's hair. "Well, I do know. I'm just not telling." 

Sherlock let go, took one step back, and began to swing at the ghost in front of him. 

Moriarty vanished the instant before Sherlock was to make contact, and reappeared right behind Sherlock. 

"That didn't work, did it?" Jim asked merrily. 

Sherlock glared. "Tell me...." 

"That's no fun. I'll show you." Jim pushed Sherlock until he was off balance and then gave a shove. 

Sherlock sprawled head first into the refrigerator. 

"What do you see?" 

"This isn't right. Sherlock voice came out muffled. 

"It looks oh so right to me." Moriarty stood behind and mimicked taking snapshots of Sherlock's arse with an invisible camera. "So very right indeed." 

Sherlock pulled himself out of the appliance and carried with him a small plate with one particularly small cornish game hen. "Mrs. Hudson' traditional christmas feast? It can't be." 

"It is." Moriarty clapped. "It is." 

"No." 

"Yes."

"No." 

"Yes." Moriarty said with delight. 

"I do not accept it." Sherlock argued. 

Moriarty yawned. 

"Mrs. Hudson isn't spending Christmas alone without any celebration at all. She wouldn't. She just wouldn't! Even that year when she was terrified of her husband's potential release she prepared her traditional feast. No. I don't accept it." 

"Yes." Jim took the tiny bird from Sherlock and threw it unceremoniously back into the refrigerator. 

"No. Her friend Mrs. Turner would see her. John would see her. He would!" 

"Would he?" 

"Yes, he would. He's very good about that sort of thing." Sherlock shouted emboldened by his rationalization. "Take me to John." 

"No." 

Sherlock glared. 

Moriarty laughed. "Oh, if you could see your face." 

"I don't want to see my face. I want to see John's face." 

Moriarty let out a low, suggestive whistle. "Fine."

"Fine?" Sherlock looked suspicious. 

"Fine." Moriarty nodded. 

"Well, let's go." Sherlock insisted. 

"You can see him, if you can find him." Jim sang out.

"You could take me to him."

"I could... but this will be our very own Christmas game. Where in the world is John Watson?" Moriarty rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "It will be such fun!" 

Sherlock marched confidently towards the door but paused when he quickly scanned some papers on Mrs. Hudson's hall table. "She wouldn't!" 

Moriarty read out loud, " Foxtons estate agents... blah, blah, blah, our meeting of December 10th... blah, blah, blah. We could not be more excited to list your Baker Street property...." 

"She wouldn't!" Sherlock repeated.

"Oh but she is." Moriarty grinned. 

Sherlock hurried out of the door and onto the street. "I will find John. I will fix this." 

"Will you?" Moriarty asked as he pulled up next to Sherlock. "Where is he?" 

Sherlock looked first left, then right. He could do this. He knew John better than he had ever known anybody. He'd lived with John. He'd worked with John. He knew John. 

Finding John would be easy, simple really, a matter of deduction. 

"Well?" Jim asked. "I'm waiting." 

Sherlock closed his eyes and tried to take hold of his jumbled, swirling thoughts." 

Moriarty started humming the Countdown theme.

"Oh shut up." 

Moriarty laughed. "This is too much fun!"

Sherlock paced. 

"His best friend dead, his blogging hobby in ruins, where would he go for Christmas?" 

"Christmas!" Sherlock exclaimed, suddenly certain. "Of course! His sister." 

"He hates his sister." 

"They don't get on, never have. But he doesn't hate her. He saw her last year!" 

"Did he?"

"What? Yes. Of course. He was going to see her... and then he got sidetracked and stayed home to look after me." 

"Touching." Moriarty made fake gagging noises.

"But I am not not here so, of course, he would go see his sister." 

"Would he now?" Moriarty asked.

"Yes! Of course he would. Lets go." 

"Lets." Moriarty agreed. he stuck his fingers to his lips and gave out a sharp, window rattling whistle. 

Instantly a black taxi pulled up. 

Moriarty stepped into the street and held the door open for Sherlock. 

Sherlock looked suspicious. "Where are we going?" 

"To see John's sister, remember?"

"In a cab?" 

"Of course in a cab." 

"That seems..." Sherlock thought of all the ways he'd travelled with Moriarty since this bizarre nightmare began and sighed, "rather pedestrian." 

"Pedestrian? We aren't walking." Moriarty laughed at his own joke as Sherlock stepped into the cab. 

"Evening, sir." The cabby greeted. 

Sherlock studied the man's reflection. It seemed familiar, somehow. "Is that Jeff Hope?" Sherlock asked Jim.

"Of course. He's my resident cabby. I believe you met once, in life." 

"Yes." Sherlock nodded.

"I believe you killed him." Moriarty accused. 

"Well, not me, personally." Sherlock answered.

"No, that would be your boy Friday." 

"Yes." Sherlock grimaced.

"The one we are going to find?" Jim asked.

"Yes." Sherlock admitted. 

"Did you hear that, Hope?" Jim asked the driver. 

The driver nodded and stepped heavily on the gas. "You might want to buckle up." Jim said. "I think it's going to be a bumpy ride." 

Sherlock didn't have the chance. He was flung about from side to side from the moment that Jim spoke. As soon as he was able to get hold of any type of grip the car flew into the air and came down with a jolting crash, shaking Sherlock's grip free just in time for the side to side movement to resume. 

The ride went on for an eternity, or so it seemed, and just as Sherlock thought he could fight it no longer, that he would pass out, the car came to an abrupt stop and let them out right in front of a suburban pub. 

"What are we doing here?" Sherlock asked as soon as he'd crawled out of the cab and clung onto the pavement, thankful for it's stillness.

"We've come to see John's sister, remember?"

"She lives in the city." Sherlock sighed. "She wouldn't have moved out here. Her ex, Clara, lives out here." 

"And yet this is where she will be." Jim answered. "Because this is where all the pubs open on Christmas day are located."

Sherlock came to his feet slowly, gingerly taking stock of his condition with every slight movement. He was sore in places he didn't know existed but he might, just possibly, live. 

Jim skipped up the steps and into the bar. "Come on then. Hurry." 

Sherlock slowly, painfully, made his way inside.

"Just like a little old man." Jim laughed. 

Sherlock contemplated it but decided he was in too much pain to attempt a pithy comeback.

Jim sighed. "So easily rattled? Pity." He took a seat at the bar and waited for Sherlock to join him. 

"She's not here." Sherlock said as he looked around. 

"We made surprisingly good time." Moriarty said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Give it a minute." 

Sherlock carefully took a seat and tried to force his tensed muscles to relax. 

The bell above the door jangled and two women entered. Both wore hideous Christmas sweaters and Sherlock couldn't help but thinking the one worn by the petite blonde, Harriet, bore striking resemblance to one John owned. They must be Christmas gifts from some odious aunt. 

The small blonde stumbled ever so slightly as she stepped through the door. The slight stumble was followed by a rather large trip and she very nearly tumbled over a table in front of her. 

"She's drunk," Sherlock sighed. 

"Really? I couldn't tell." Moriarty snarked. 

Sherlock shook his head. "Can't you be sober for once in your life? For him? He needs you!" Sherlock shouted. "And you," He shouted at the other woman. "You are enabling this? Even after the divorce?" 

Harry giggled as she righted herself and then took a seat at the very table she'd nearly destroyed. 

"He needs you." Clara said in a weary tone as she took a seat across from her former partner. 

Sherlock lept up. "That's it, talk some sense into her!"

"Needs me, does he? He won't even come to see me! No. He couldn't possibly do that." Harry spoke louder than was strictly necessary. 

"He will come around." The other woman tried to reassure her friend. "It's been a rough time for him since Sherlock." 

"Two pints, sir!" Harry yelled to nobody in particular. 

"Sherlock this, Sherlock that, I am so bloody tired of Sherlock Bloody Holmes! The man was a fake and a fraud and John still grieves for him, still believes in him. After everything..." 

Clara sighed, "I can relate."

A small harried man made his way to them carrying the pints. 

Clara pushed hers away. 

"To Sherlock Holmes." Harry slurred. "The founder of the feast... er... bringer of the binge." 

Sherlock stepped back, stunned. 

"May he rot in hell." Harry said, downing her first pint in a few long swallows. "We will need another round, sir!" She called out. 

"John will come around, Harry." Clara tried to reassure the woman. 

"He won't. He wouldn't see me before. Always running off this way or that on a case and now he won't see me, on Christmas because he'd rather mope around in a graveyard!"

"It's hard at Christmas," Clara sighed. "Give him time." 

"I thought when that man died that it would refocus John, get him back to medicine, or something. But no, he's done nothing with his life. He's less focused than he was before!" Harriet reached across the table and pulled Clara's abandoned pint towards her. 

"Harry, please..." Clara pleaded.

"That man..." Harry began another rant. 

Sherlock made his way to the door. 

He got outside to find Moriarty already waiting. 

"To your grave then." Moriarty asked as he put his fingers up to his lips to once again usher the demon cab. 

Sherlock groaned. "I can walk, thanks." 

"You can but it is so much slower...." 

Sherlock let out a heavy sigh and climbed into the back of the cab.

"Going to visit your own grave, so macabre!" Moriarty laughed as the taxi zoomed off. 

"Less so when you aren't buried there." Sherlock tried to sound aloof as the cab picked up speed and lot control. 

"John doesn't know that." Moriarty sang out.

Sherlock closed his eyes against the pain and didn't open them again until they arrived. 

Moriarty sighed a deep, heavy disapproval. "You are no fun at all." 

Sherlock got out of the cab without a word and strode purposefully to his tombstone.

"You've been here before." Moriarty noted. "You know the way."

"Couldn't pass up the chance to watch my own funeral." 

The cemetery was empty. The cold grey day seemed all too appropriate to the setting. 

"It is a nice stone. Simple." Moriarty remarked. "John must've picked it out, Mycroft couldn't possibly do understated." 

"Your stone has a cartoon dog, Richard Brooks." Sherlock laughed.

"Awww, you've visited my grave. I'm touched." 

"In the head," Sherlock quipped as he looked out on the horizon trying to spot John. 

"He doesn't seem to be here. Maybe he's not coming."

"Harry said..." 

"Harry is a drunk." 

"John told her he would come." 

"So she would leave him alone. He lied." Moriarty laughed.

Sherlock bristled. "It isn't true!" he yelled but his voice quivered slightly with uncertainty. 

"Isn't it?" Moriarty laughed. "We will wait then, if you're so certain. We can wait all day. I don't have anywhere to be, ever"

Sherlock took a seat behind a large tree. 

Moriarty picked a discarded newspaper, sat down beside Sherlock, and began reading, "unsolved crime. Police have no suspects..." 

Sherlock kept watching for John. 

Moriarty continued reading aloud. "Oooh, my people did that one... triple homicide in Kent." 

Sherlock smiled. "Yes, but I will be delivering all of them to Scotland Yard come morning... if morning ever comes." He wondered how long he'd been on this little quest. He wondered how much more he could take. 

"Now if only Scotland Yard would take them." Moriarty laughed. "Precious few cases closed since summer... Like this one." Moriarty began reading another crime report. 

Sherlock tried to drown him out but eventually the details were too clear in his head. "Wait, all you need to solve that case has been reported in the papers! Lestrade could solve that on his own."

"He's on 'administrative leave'. All his cases under review, disciplinary hearings, it's been such fun."   
Sherlock tried to ignore the implications of what he'd just heard. He tried to focus on something else, anything else. "Anybody could solve that case. Anderson could solve that case." 

"Clearly not." Jim shrugged, "Since it's not solved." 

Sherlock tried to think of some way to undo what he had done, to bring some semblance of normalcy back to the lives of the people he left. Before he could work anything out, John and Mrs. Hudson came into view.

"He would see her. I told you he would see her." Sherlock gloated but fell quiet as he watched their slow, stilted movements. 

Something weighed on them both. It wasn't the cold, and it wasn't Mrs. Hudson's arthritis. 

He wanted to move closer but he wasn't sure he could bare it.

He waited, and watched. He tried to will himself to do something, anything. He watched Mrs. Hudson move to give John time alone. Sherlock found himself moving, ever so slowly towards his friend.

"You told me once you weren't a hero." Sherlock heard John's words and slunk backwards. He'd been right then. No hero would allow this. 

Moriarty propelled Sherlock forward as John continued, "There were times when I didn't think you were human." 

"Alien, I've always suspected." Moriarty heckled in Sherlock's ear. 

Sherlock swung his elbow backwards, trying to inflict damage.

"Nice move. It would have hurt, really. But I can't hurt. I'm a ghost." 

"I was so alone..." John said. 

Sherlock thought back to the scene in John's tiny flat and sympathetically moved towards him.

Moriarty held onto Sherlock's shoulders halting all forward progress.

"Please, there is just one more thing, one more miracle. Don't be dead. Would you do that?" 

Sherlock pulled hard, harder than he had ever pulled before and broke free of Moriarty's grip. 

"Just for me?" 

Sherlock tried to move to John but couldn't make his feet work

"Just stop it." John pleaded. 

Sherlock leaned forward trying to will himself to move. 

"Stop this." John said. 

And he decided he would. He had to. He stepped out into the open ready to call out for John when Moriarty popped up in front of him. "He can't hear you, remember?" 

Rage overcame Sherlock and he swung his fist, as hard as he could at Moriarty's face.


End file.
